Video: Exploring the desktop

In this movie, I want to talk a little bit more about the desktop. No, I don't mean the desktop at the OS level of your system; I mean the Desktop view here inside of Adobe SpeedGrade. The desktop is how you'll access different files and folders and even different drives that are attached to your system, and the desktop is this area here at the top of the Adobe SpeedGrade interface. Now let's go ahead and start up this movie by talking about this over here in the left-hand side of the desktop, and this is the file tree. The file tree allows you to actually navigate to different files and folders, and as I mentioned, even different drives in your system. And starting here at the top of the file tree, you'll see a listing for desktop.

With Adobe SpeedGrade, editors working with the Creative Suite now have a professional-level color correction and grading application in their hands for the first time. In this course, professional colorist Robbie Carman guides colorists and video editors through this new dedicated color correction application. The course walks through the interface, and then shows how to import footage and start making primary and secondary color corrections. Discover how to use masking and create and apply looks for maximum impact. The final chapters show how to make sure your corrections match shot to shot, and how to render your final output.

Exploring the desktop

In this movie, I want to talk a little bit more about the desktop. No, I don't mean the desktop at the OS level of your system; I mean the Desktop view here inside of Adobe SpeedGrade. The desktop is how you'll access different files and folders and even different drives that are attached to your system, and the desktop is this area here at the top of the Adobe SpeedGrade interface. Now let's go ahead and start up this movie by talking about this over here in the left-hand side of the desktop, and this is the file tree. The file tree allows you to actually navigate to different files and folders, and as I mentioned, even different drives in your system. And starting here at the top of the file tree, you'll see a listing for desktop.

And this is where you'd see different drives that are attached to your system, but it's also where you'll see items that are truly on your actual desktop, like the Exercise Files folder right here. With this option right down here, you can view any recently used folders that you've navigated to, and because I'm on a Mac, if I go ahead and click this little disclosure triangle right here, I can reveal the contents of my user home directory. You can navigate the file tree by using the up and down arrows to navigate to different locations, and then you can open up a location by using the right arrow, and then you can close that location by using the left arrow and this makes it really easy to quickly navigate different files and folders and even different drives that you have on your system.

Over here is the main area of the desktop and this is where you'll see the contents of a selected folder or different drive that you have over here in the file tree. Starting here at the very top, I can see a file path, but the one option I want to point out right now is this menu right here. Now the option that I currently have selected is Sequences from selected folder. What that will do is it will show me any .ircp or SpeedGrade project or timeline that I have inside of the folder that I have selected over in the file tree. By the way, it will also show you any Premiere Pro project files that you have inside of a selected directory.

But the option that I choose most of the time is this one right here, Sequences from folder + subtree. When I choose this option what I can do is view not only the contents on the main level of the directory that I have selected over in the file tree, but I can also see the contents of any subfolder that I have within the selected folder over in the file tree. So in this case if I scroll down a little bit here in my Desktop view, not only am I seeing SpeedGrade projects or timelines, but I am also seeing any of the media that I have inside of the Exercise Files folder. But this media is inside of a subfolder called, well, Media.

And this view is sort of a way of comprehensively viewing the contents of a selected location in the file tree. And as I said this is the method that I prefer, but you can play around with the different options available up in the menu. With these controls over here, you can adjust how you're viewing thumbnails. So with the Thumbnail Size slider if you drag up, you can increase the size of a thumbnail that you're viewing. Now there is one really cool thing about this. if you go ahead and press the P key on your keyboard, you can hide all the tabs at the bottom of the Adobe SpeedGrade interface. Then if you increase your Thumbnail Size all the way up, you'll get a nice super-sized view of a clip that you're trying to preview or look at.

Now the really neat thing about this is that anytime that you place your mouse over a thumbnail of a clip, you'll get this little slider right here. You can slide to preview or scrub through the clip. Let me go ahead and reduce the Thumbnail Size just a touch. Next, with this button right here for Show Thumbnails, you can choose whether you want to turn off the graphical or visual view of the thumbnail or have it enabled. Like a lot of other applications, you can choose to view your clips either as Thumbnails or you can choose to view them in a List view. Of course in List view, you also get a thumbnail but it's just a lot smaller, but you do get a lot of additional information about a shot.

With these Sort By controls you can choose to sort by File Name, Timecode Range, Resolution or even Modified Date. And then if use this button right here, you can change the sort order. Neighbor part of the desktop I have another menu that I want to show you. By default, we're viewing all files in a selected folder or directory. However, you can filter which file types that you're viewing in a selected folder or directory or even drive. So for example, if you only wanted to view EDLs or DPX image sequences, or say RAW files you can do that. Let me go ahead and choose RAW files and you can see now I'm viewing this R3D file. This is a RED RAW file, and in this case there is only one RAW file in my exercise files directory.

But this is a nice way to filter a directory or folder for only the file types that you want to view. Let me go ahead and change that back to All Files. Then let me scroll back down once again so we're viewing some shots. Sometimes over the course of a project you'll add additional media to a directory or folder. And to have Adobe SpeedGrade update to show you those new items all you need to do is go ahead and click on this button right here to refresh your currently selected directory or folder. And actually anytime that you navigate to a new location, Adobe SpeedGrade automatically refreshes that view.

So over here in my file tree if I go up to view, say the main level of my hard drive, you'll notice that SpeedGrade updates. Click back on exercise files, it once again is updating. So far we've just taking a look at how to view items here in the desktop of Adobe SpeedGrade, however we have not talked about how to actually open something up. So what I want to do is simply place my cursor over this file right here called 01_02_desktop_.ircp. This is an Adobe SpeedGrade timeline or project. And the way that I open up an Adobe SpeedGrade timeline or project is by simply selecting it and then pressing the plus button.

If you're not a plus button type of person you can also simply double-click on it and then down here at the bottom of the interface I have my Timeline. Now remember, I've currently hidden all the tabs at the bottom of the SpeedGrade interface. Remember, if I want to get those back, I'll simply press P on the keyboard to reveal those tabs once again. Okay so you've opened up a project or a timeline but how do you actually get media into that timeline or project? Well that's pretty simple, but in doing so I want to show you one more neat feature of the desktop inside of Adobe SpeedGrade. You'll notice here at the top of the interface I have multiple desktop tabs, and you can actually add as many tabs as you want by clicking this plus button right here, but by default I have two additional tabs, these guys right here.

Let me click on this first one and then click on my Exercise Files folder. And then I am going to go into the Media folder, and inside of the Media folder I have three different subfolders, and I am going to click on this first one, desktop location 1. And inside of that folder you'll notice that I have two different clips. Let me click over to this second desktop tab over here and I am going to repeat that same process, opening Exercise Files > Media and then desktop location 2, and in this folder I have two additional clips.

The cool thing about using multiple tabs here at the top of the Adobe SpeedGrade interface or the desktop is that you can sort of create bookmarks for different locations on your system, and by doing so you can quickly navigate to those different locations. So for example, I can click on my exercise files, back over here to desktop location 1, desktop location 2. I just wanted to point this out because as you get more complex in your projects for example conforming a huge long feature film with an EDL, you might have media in multiple locations. And by using multiple desktop tabs you can sort of save those various locations so you're not having to do a lot of fumbling around over here in the file tree.

Okay let me switch back over to desktop location 1 right here and then let's actually talk about how to get an actual clip onto an open SpeedGrade timeline or into a project. And the way I do that is exactly in the same method that I opened up a project with. If you simply placed your cursor over a clip, you'll get that same plus button and by clicking that plus button you'll add it down here to an open timeline. Let me go ahead and add this clip as well by clicking the plus button. And you'll notice that second clip is placed right after the first clip down here in the timeline. Let me click over to desktop location 2 and this time I'll simply double-click on the clip and it's also added to the timeline and I repeat that with the last clip.

Finally, I want to share with you one last useful keyboard shortcut and that's the D key on the keyboard. The D key allows you to toggle between the monitor, which we'll talk about later in this chapter and your last active Desktop view. So that's the Desktop view inside of Adobe SpeedGrade and it's the way inside of the UI that you'll navigate to files, folders and even drives.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

Already a member ?

Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
Learn more

Upgrade to our Annual Premium Membership today and get even more value from your lynda.com subscription:

“In a way, I feel like you are rooting for me. Like you are really invested in my experience, and want me to get as much out of these courses as possible this is the best place to start on your journey to learning new material.”— Nadine H.

Thanks for signing up.

We’ll send you a confirmation email shortly.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.

Keep up with news, tips, and latest courses with emails from lynda.com.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.